Columnist Dean Juipe: Talent, luck decide most pro games

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, May 18, 1999 | 10:36 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

There are certain words and phrases that cannot be said on television.

Profanity, of course, tops the list.

Derogatory remarks that imply a lack of moral character or blatant inferiority are out as well, as is any kind of cruel or insensitive innuendo.

These are all covered in Broadcasting 101. They're basic.

But it has become apparent while watching the ongoing National Basketball Association and National Hockey League playoffs on TV that another type of verbalized statement deserves to be banned and never uttered in anything near a serious context.

It's the idiotic claim that one team or another is trailing in a game or perhaps has already lost it due to a "lack of effort."

It's insulting, not only toward the intended target but to the viewers who have to listen to some highly paid announcer or analyst who can't accurately describe why one team happens to be leading or beating another. Lack of effort may periodically be a legitimate concern during the course of a lengthy regular season, but in games where there's money on the table and at stake -- like now, in playoff time -- in spite of what you might hear, there is never a lack of effort. Never.

Nonetheless, it makes for a convenient excuse and the lamest of broadcasters relies on it rather than looking closer to find something astute or that requires a polished insight.

Here's what really decides games at the professional level: talent, luck and sometimes officiating.

Every team in the playoffs wants to win and each plays hard. The underdogs are motivated to do the unexpected and the favorites are motivated to protect their lofty stature. They're not just jogging out there and hoping for the best.

Yet the TV viewer is constantly being told the team that's losing either "didn't show up to play" or that the team that's ahead "is certainly inspired to win this one."

Hey, they're all inspired when there's money on the line.

It's talent and ability that usually separates the winner from the loser, with luck a significant factor as well. If Vlade Divac makes either of two hook shots in the final minute of Sunday's NBA playoff game with the Utah Jazz, the Sacramento Kings win the series and he's a hero. Instead, he misses both, the Kings are eliminated and, some narrow-minded broadcaster would say, they have to hang their heads in shame because they didn't give their best effort in the series-deciding game.

More specifically, the announcers were all over the Colorado Avalanche as it fell two games behind the Detroit Red Wings in the second round of the NHL playoffs. The implication was that the Avs had rolled over and died without putting up a fight. Now that series is 3-2 for Colorado -- with luck and officiating playing prominent roles -- and it's the Wings taking the heat for their supposed lack of panache.

Even with the advantage of being an ex-player, many, many TV analysts say or believe "desire" will decide a given game. But that never accounts for what happens when two teams with equal desire meet, as is constantly the case in playoff settings.

Please, you guys, spare us. If you can't pinpoint why Team X has the upper hand on Team Y, then don't say anything.

Just don't lay it on this phony notion that one team "wants it" more than the other.