* Crossposted in NBA_ECHO
* Crossposted in SPORTS
If Utah loses this series (and it looks that way), the "MVP" can step forward 
and take the blame that he so richly deserves. Yeah, I know that Utah fans 
will hate this but the fact is that Malone has NOT delivered an MVP 
performance, especially in the 4th quarter. Oh, you can say that he has but 
he hasn't. His 9 of 21 performance in the 4th quarter isn't up to the 
performances of Pippen (9 of 20), Stockton (10 of 19) or Jordan (24 of 39). 
At first glance it looks like his performance is *almost* as good as 
Pippen's, however, it's not even in the same ballpark. Malone's *true 
shooting percentage* for the 4th quarter is .429 while Pippen's is .575 
(Stockton's is .632 and Jordan's is .667).
I'm sure that after this series that his fans will have all kinds of excuses 
but the fact is that the Mailman hasn't done his job. While Michael Jordan 
has seen the same kind of defensive effort on him as Malone, he hasn't let 
that keep him from trying to take over the game in the 4th quarter (His 39 
shots are 1 less than Stockton AND Malone and he's made 5 more shots. Add to 
that the fact that Malone and Stockton have 5 fourth quarter dunks and Jordan 
only has two). Malone doesn't seem to have the same desire that Jordan or 
Larry Bird had when it came crunch time. I've felt that the NBA has made two 
big mistakes with the MVP award (Robinson over Olajuwon and Malone over 
Jordan) in the past couple of years and both times, the *real* MVP killed the 
pretender (I think more sportwriters voted not to "yet again" give the award 
to Jordan than voted for Malone. None of their excuses even came close to 
justifying the award for Malone, especially since some of their arguments 
actually BOLSTERED Jordan's case).
--- TrekEd 1.00
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