NBC Will Improve if Riley Gets Costas Out of His Hair

OK, who has been masquerading as Bob Costas? Maybe it’s Todd Donoho or some other local television clown.

Surely, Costas, the pro that he is, wouldn’t engage in something as cornball as a season-long basketball shootoff with a former pro player and coach, then, after somehow winning, muss his beaten foe’s hair on national television.

Nah, Emmy Award-winning Bob Costas, the serious journalist he prides himself on being, wouldn’t do that. Not during the NBA finals.

Well at least now, heading into Game 3 tonight, all the foolishness is apparently over. Thank goodness.

Costas--or maybe it was his impostor--had to switch gears during halftime of Game 2 Wednesday night and try to come back with a serious feature on the North Carolina connection--Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Sam Perkins.

Sorry, but it was hard to take anyone seriously after all that nonsense with Pat Riley.

At least, Costas didn’t lose the shootout and thus wasn’t forced to mousse his hair.

Sunday, NBC showed what Costas would look like with Riley’s hairdo, and vice versa. Costas had a lot more to lose than Riley.

As it was, he lost only his dignity.

Maybe now Costas can move on to other roles--such as host of “The Gong Show.”

You think that, just possibly, NBC can show us who wins tonight’s tipoff?

That overhead shot the network uses may be artsy, but otherwise it’s worthless.

If there were good vantage points in the rafters, they would have seats up there.

And, please NBC, show the score and time remaining more. Those things can’t be overdone.

NBC had most of the angles covered Wednesday night. We even got a shot of Michael Jordan getting a bag out of his car’s trunk after arriving at Chicago Stadium.

But after the game, there was time only for a quick interview with Jordan and no one else.

For those who stayed tuned, there was Fred Roggin’s postgame show on KNBC, and interviews aplenty.

Even Mychal Thompson, who didn’t score, was on. Thompson is usually good for some one-liners, but on this night A.C. Green had the best response.

Asked Roggin: “Will each player do some soul-searching on the plane home?”

Green: “I’m sure they will, but I’m going to be eating.”

Why is it that television people think it’s necessary to show drunks at a sports bar?

KNBC had Joe Rico at a sports hangout in Glendale. Rico, to his credit, didn’t try to talk over the din of the screaming idiots and instead used cue cards after Wednesday night’s game.

Nice touch, but one of the cards, referring to all the madness, read: “Mixed with a Laker victory, this was expected.”

Psst, Joe, the Lakers lost.

Magic Johnson has tremendous presence of mind on the basketball court--and also on camera.

Stepping up to do an interview with Roggin after Game 1, Johnson’s first move was to get the cameraman to show the reason he was eyeball to eyeball with Roggin.

“Come on, show this,” Magic told the cameraman, who panned down to show Roggin standing on a box.

Maybe more embarrassing for Roggin was that he was wearing brown shoes with his gray suit.

Magic was in a little more somber mood Wednesday night, but still got in his shot: “On that box again, huh Fred?”

You have to give Riley some credit as a prognosticator. Before Game 2, he said if the Bulls scored 105 points, they would win. They scored 107 and won.

It is hoped that commentator Mike Fratello isn’t using NBC as a stopping-off place before he, too, gets his next coaching job.

By the way, can anyone find an NBA coaching job for Costas?

But back to Fratello, the former Atlanta coach. He has a future in broadcasting and works well with play-by-play announcer Marv Albert. Fratello is smooth, articulate, insightful and not afraid to express an opinion.

When Byron Scott was called for a flagrant foul against Scottie Pippen early in the second half Wednesday night--perhaps the turning point of the game, if there was one--Fratello criticized the call.

At first, Fratello simply said: “I’m not quite sure Byron Scott intended anything other than stopping the layup.” But he came on stronger after seeing the replay: “No way on that one could I call a malicious foul on Scott’s part.”

Fratello got in a nice dig at Dean Smith during a two-way hookup with the North Carolina coach. “Word is you were the only person to hold Michael Jordan under 20 points,” Fratello told Smith, referring to Jordan’s college scoring average.

Smith rallied well. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Bobby Knight held him to under 15 during the Olympics.”

Ratings: Game 1 got a national Nielsen rating of 12.6, and Game 2, despite being lopsided, got a 16.1, the highest rating for the second game of an NBA finals.

Last year, Game 2 got a 12.2.

In Los Angeles, this year’s Game 2 got a 29.5, beating out the 26.8 for Game 1 and the 25.2 for Game 6 of the series against Portland.

The highest-rated Laker telecast in Los Angeles was Game 7 of the 1988 NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons, which drew a 40.9.

Add ratings: Game 6 of the Trail Blazer series averaged an 11.8 nationally, good enough to rank only 17th among prime-time programming last week, but it was the highest rating for a non-final NBA playoff game since 1988.

A look at the major markets around the country shows that Game 1 of the finals did the best in Chicago, where it got a 40.1. It did the worst in Cincinnati (6.4) and Minneapolis (7.2). Don’t those people in Minneapolis realize the Lakers used to be their team? Of course, that was 32 years ago.

TV-Radio Notes

KMPC has finally named a new football and basketball play-by-play announcer. John Rebenstorf, UCLA’s radio commentator on football last season and the early favorite, ended up getting the job. Another candidate, Dan Rowe of Tulsa, eliminated himself by taking a job with the Minnesota Vikings. KMPC has yet to name a football commentator to work with Rebenstorf, although former Ram Jack Snow is the front-runner. Rebenstorf will work basketball alone. KMPC has dropped Ann Meyers.

Get ready for Raghib (Rocket) Ismail on Prime Ticket this summer and fall. Prime Ticket has made a deal to carry the Canadian Football League and also supply the telecasts to the 15 other regional sports networks that make up the Prime Network. The first telecast will be a June 26 exhibition game between Toronto, Ismail’s team, and Winnipeg.

SportsChannel gets a break tonight when Fernando Valenzuela makes his Angel debut against Detroit on the pay-cable network. But then most viewers will still be watching the Lakers and Bulls when Valenzuela takes the mound. . . . An omen? Valenzuela’s no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 29, 1990, was on SportsChannel.

Once again, it’s a weekend with no major league baseball on CBS, but at least there is Saturday’s College World Series championship game at 10 a.m., with Greg Gumbel and Jim Kaat announcing. . . . On Prime Ticket’s “Greatest Games Ever Played” series Sunday night at 8 will be Game 6 of the 1952 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.