Everyone’s on Board as the NBA Love Boat Sinks

A funny thing happened on the way to the NBA Finals -- NBA standing, of course, for Nothing But Acrimony.

Through last weekend, this was a season built on animosity. Pistons versus Pacers. Pacers versus Piston fans. Jeff Van Gundy versus referees. Rasheed Wallace versus referees. Phil Jackson versus Kobe Bryant. And, of course, the feud to end all feuds, although in all likelihood this feud will never end, Bryant versus Shaquille O’Neal.

A whole lot of hatred was going on this season. NBA fans became accustomed to it. NBA fans came to expect it. NBA fans even participated it.

Then came Monday and Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals between Detroit and Miami.

Suddenly, a strange synergy was breaking out everywhere over the airwaves.

Twice during the afternoon leading into TNT’s Game 7 telecast, rival ESPN ran interviews with TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley, whose familiar talking head appeared on the screen above an ESPN-generated graphic reading, “TNT NBA Analyst.”

Then, as if to return the favor to the Disney media empire, TNT NBA play-by-play commentator Marv Albert signed off after Detroit’s 88-82 victory by telling viewers, “I know that Al Michaels and Hubie Brown are putting their final touches on their notes. We wish Al and Hubie and their crew the best for ABC coverage of the Finals, beginning this Thursday, 8:30 p.m., Eastern time.”

This is something you’d never see, say, Fox and CBS do during the NFL season. But then the NFL is the NFL. The NBA is scrambling to rally and recoup lost television ratings, so there is this kind of if-it’s-good-for-the-league-it’s-good-for-us mentality you often see from media outlets covering struggling start-up leagues.

On that note, will a Detroit-versus-San Antonio Finals assist that rally, or will it hasten the ratings slide?

On the plus side for the NBA: It can’t be any worse than San Antonio-New Jersey, the finals that almost killed off the league in 2003.

On the down side: This isn’t the Lakers-versus-anybody, which enabled the league to pretend happy days were here again four times in the previous five years, even though the ratings boost was created largely by the creative tension between Shaq and Kobe and the Lakers’ emergence as the Yankees of pro basketball -- the team the rest of the nation loved to hate.

That’s all over now, as Shaq had to remind everybody one more time Monday before bowing out of this postseason.

Previewing Game 7 a few hours before tipoff, ESPN’s Mike Tirico set the stage thus: “Shaquille O’Neal, undefeated in Game 7s. Shaquille O’Neal, if you think back to the Lakers-Portland Game 7 back in 2000, can certainly carry a team, even when down double digits, in key moments of a Game 7.

“And when you step even further back, this is why Shaq’s here. Shaq is here to win for Miami and to put them to the next level. Shaq has also brought a lot of the buzz around one of the game’s great superstars of our generation in sports to South Florida.”

This was followed by a hosanna-filled report on the greatness of Shaq, during which Shaq and his agent, Perry Rogers, took their obligatory shots at Los Angeles and the Lakers.

O’Neal described the city of Miami as being “very hungry. This city is a very, very live city. It’s sort of like a young Los Angeles.”

Rogers described O’Neal’s relationship with Miami and the Heat as a “love affair not because it’s new, but because there’s trust. The management in Miami is honest, filled with integrity, good people. There clearly was a management shift in Los Angeles.”

The report teetered on over-the-top, then cleared the bar when Heat Coach Stan Van Gundy gushed, “There’s probably no bigger celebrity in the world than Shaquille. So wherever he is, that’s where everybody wants to be.”

As Van Gundy was speaking, footage of fans at a Heat game filled the screen. There was a quick shot of Andre Agassi and wife Steffi Graf that instantly undermined Van Gundy’s comments. You want two celebrities better known around the world -- in Europe, in Australia, in South America -- than Shaq? There you go, there’s Graf and Agassi, just for starters.

O’Neal wasn’t even the most dominant big man in these playoffs. That honor goes to Barkley, so much in demand, so big a lightning-rod quote machine, that ESPN had him on twice for pregame interviews Monday, first on “Pardon The Interruption,” then on “SportsCenter.”

There are reasons for this. Barkley speaks his mind, jumping on the dump-on-Kobe bandwagon is his own inimitable way, saying on “PTI” that “People talk about Kobe Bryant, Penny Hardaway and Dwyane Wade. No disrespect to Kobe or Penny Hardaway, but you saw what happened when they left Shaq. They kind of fell off the map.”

Barkley also knows his stuff. Asked on “SportsCenter” to pick one Piston player who had to have a great game for Detroit to win, Barkley paused for a moment, thought about it a bit, then replied, “Rasheed Wallace. He’s the only guy Miami can’t match up with. They do not have an answer for him.

“He can post [Udonis] Haslem up. When they bring in Alonzo Mourning, he can take him outside and shoot threes. So I would say Rasheed Wallace for the Pistons to win.”

Some statistics from Game 7: Wallace, 20 points, eight for 13 from the field, seven rebounds. Detroit becomes only the third NBA team since 1982 to win a Game 7 on the road.

When Wallace appeared on TNT’s postgame show, proudly brandishing a pro wrestling-style championship belt, Barkley couldn’t resist taking a dig when Wallace talked excitedly about renewing his old North Carolina-Wake Forest rivalry with Tim Duncan in the finals.

“You know, Carolina finally got good again,” Barkley quipped. “Between you and Michael Jordan and Kenny [Smith moving on], you all finally got back under the salary cap. So it took you all a while to get back to the promised land.”