With the NBA playoffs already in full swing, the best sports show on television is finally getting its annual time in the sun. The Emmy Award winning Inside the NBA, hosted by UGA’s own Ernie Johnson and former NBA players, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, airs almost nightly on TNT following the network’s playoff coverage.
Few people tune in for the show’s weekly airings on Thursday nights during the regular season, due to the NBA’s paltry television ratings. That is a tremendous shame because the banter and fun that the three analysts undertake is some of the most entertaining work on sports television. Johnson plays the role of traffic cop, deferring smartly to the intelligent Smith and the controversial Barkley. Without Johnson’s grace and ability to know when to reign in “Sir Charles,” the sometimes free-wheeling show could lose control.
The show endures far more technical difficulties than the much more choreographed and much better staffed SportsCenter, but even the show’s low moments are fun because of the humor of the three stars. In one particularly amusing sequence during last year’s playoffs, Johnson began to read the highlights of a Warriors-Jazz game in Utah, only to have Barkley exclaim thirty seconds into the highlight reel that the game Johnson was talking about wasn’t on the screen. The show had actually rolled clips of a previous Warriors-Jazz game played in Golden State. Johnson began laughing when Barkley said the Warriors weren’t wearing the same uniforms they were wearing in the game played that same night. Eventually, Johnson was laughing so hard he couldn’t finish the sequence.
During the playoffs the show also brings in other former players, such as Reggie Miller and Magic Johnson to get even more perspectives. While most of the ESPN basketball studio analysts were former NBA role players, TNT enables fans to understand the playoffs from the perspective of the superstars. Due to the west coast playoff games, Inside the NBA often does not even get underway until after 1:00a.m. eastern time, but the show is well worth the loss of sleep for viewers who choose to stay up to watch it.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sports: what to watch
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I am very impressed that someone other than myself is mentioning sports. Charles Barkley is the man. He was on PTI the other day and when asked whether his partner, Kenny Smith, should take the head coaching job of the New York Knicks, Barkley responded by saying would you jump on the Titanic when it's sinking. Priceless.
Post a Comment